Mick Colageo: Time to find out if NHL is headed for another deep freeze

Tuesday

Aug 14, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 14, 2012 at 10:12 AM

On June 15, 2011, when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup, the experience was so exhausting for anyone who had followed this team during the darker days that preceded its championship run — or further into the past — that a January 2012 restart would have been just fine.

MICK COLAGEO

On June 15, 2011, when the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup, the experience was so exhausting for anyone who had followed this team during the darker days that preceded its championship run — or further into the past — that a January 2012 restart would have been just fine.

Having some recovery time certainly would have been welcomed by players, coaches, management and staff, whose summer boiled down to a series of commitments and celebrations making a seamless connection from one season to the next.

"It was like one long baseball season," said Milan Lucic, one of the Bruins who couldn't muster his "A" game at playoff time last spring.

Having given up their crown prematurely, in a seventh-game, opening-round overtime loss to the Washington Capitals, the 2012-13 season can't come fast enough.

The only problem is it's probably not coming any time soon.

The collective bargaining agreement established in 2005 expires on Sept. 15, and National Hockey League owners have proposed that the players accept an 11-percent decrease in their 57-percent cut of the league's $3.3 billion in annual gross revenue.

As outlandish as that may sound, the owners have argued that the current system effectively leaves them with just 29 percent.

Oh, and the NHLPA is now run by Donald Fehr, who presided over the major league baseball players' union in 1994, when the sides couldn't come to an agreement and a strike cancelled the World Series.

Add the more petty logistics, like the fact that no veteran player really likes training camp, that those players won't begin feeling a financial pinch until Thanksgiving and that the NHL generally doesn't hit its sweet spot until Christmas, and you see where this could be headed.

Now if you hear any talk-show pundits say that the NHL cannot afford another shutdown, that it'll kill the sport, hit the mute button.

The NHL was a $2 billion industry when it came back from its full-season lockout in 2005, and now it's reportedly at $3.3 billion. And the salary floor (ie. the amount teams are required to spend on annual payroll to qualify for revenue sharing) is $13 million higher than the salary cap was when the league came back ($39.5M).

NHL owners took their big risk last time. This time they have every reason to be confident — cocky even.

Not that it would be the right thing to do for, as the league makes more money, don't the owners get richer, too? Besides, the union capitulated the last time, accepting a 24-percent across-the-board salary rollback and, on top of that, a salary cap based on a players' take of 57 percent of the NHL's annual gross revenues.

So what went wrong for the owners? One thing: a giveback on true free agency, as early as age 25 for qualifying players.

The threat of losing young players at the end of their second contracts motivated general managers to change their entire approach toward Group II "restricted" free agents (ie. those who could sign offer sheets that teams could match). Gone were the days of Harry Sinden telling Joe Juneau to practice his yodeling, and instead a new generation of managers focused on team building rather than the few stars and revolving door of scrubs that was widely predicted for the salary-cap NHL.

As a result of the change in orientation, young cornerstone players like Patrice Bergeron earned market-level salaries several years before they would have prior to the salary cap, when players couldn't bolt out of town until age 31.

In locking up their core talent, the Bruins became winners and leaders. Not only did the new way of doing business change free agents' attitude about playing in Boston, it influenced a number of rival clubs to follow suit, lest they lose their own to free agency.

The biggest difference for the Bruins at this point is they are at the top of the NHL salary chart; in 2004 they scheduled several contracts to expire and wound up scrambling to put together a roster for the comeback season. The debacle that resulted led to the trade of Joe Thornton and, ultimately, the first management overhaul in franchise history.

All's well that ends well, and the Bruins are big business now, having recovered their franchise mojo with the first championship in 39 years and the biggest parade in New England history.

That said, it would be a shame to sacrifice the momentum.

But NHL owners are waging another labor war, not because the partnership didn't succeed but because the owners didn't realize their own earning potential under the 2005 agreement.

Money people have criticized the league for not maximizing revenue sharing, but let's go beyond the technical matters. It's frustrating to watch the finally playoff-bound Phoenix Coyotes operating on league-sponsored life support while the mediocre Maple Leafs continue hogging a giant Toronto market that can better support a second franchise than metro New York supports the three it has had for almost 30 years.

The NHL's mission to Mars, as it were, is getting tedious. Send the hockey to the hockey fans, I say. Start with Quebec City and don't wait for the new building — everyone unlucky enough to never see a game in Boston Garden should see one at Colisee Pepsi.

Some things just make too much sense to happen, but that's the maddening part of sports vs. money.

Perhaps the NHL and the NHLPA can find some common ground here. Perhaps they're smart enough to realize that a compromise would do each side more good than another labor war.

Perhaps the partnership they talked about so much seven years ago actually exists.

Can hockey at its best survive another season lost? Absolutely, the NHL has proven that in far more trying circumstances.

This time it's not about coming up with a system providing economic survival, it's about divvying up enormous spoils and not being so greedy to toss away a winning business.

The NHLPA is expected to make its long-awaited counterproposal today, and we'll soon learn if, for once, both sides will do right by the people who make this fight possible — the fans.

Mick Colageo covers hockey for The Standard-Times. Contact him at mcolageo@s-t.com and visit Rink Rap at blogs.southcoasttoday.com/bruins

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